What have you done to your Tacoma today? 1st Gen Edition

That part of the radiator is absolutely going to cool your trans fluid when it’s 20F out, once the transmission fluid warms up. Because even when it’s cold, your trans fluid will warm up while driving.

it’s not going to be “ambient temp,” but in cold weather it will be close to room temp, yeah. I live in SoCal, so ambient may have been the wrong word.

Either way, that cooler is designed as such. It’s not a heater in any way.

When I built my onboard shower, v1.0 utilized that cooler in a misguided attempt to heat the water. 45 minutes of highway driving with the circulation pump running and I ended up warming the 3.5gal of water by 5 degrees. turns out radiators are amazingly efficient and that heat exchanger is a terrible heater.

 

No I got it off RockAuto for like $120. That’s what I’m trying to figure out but from what I can tell everything looks normal. I did forget to plug the MAS back in for a sec when I started it up for the first time but that’s obviously fixed now and I even cleaned the MAS. Am perplexed lol.
Something definitely does sound different though. It’s like the air intake is louder but not from the filter but more from the TB.

 

Once you plugged in the MAS did you clear codes with your reader?

 

Once I plugged it back in I don’t believe it was throwing any codes.. just idling a little high and rough. Now I have codes this morning. Drives perfectly fine.

 

I did also tighten the throttle cables because I think they had some slack. Is that ok?

 

As long as they return all the way to closed throttle, better to be a little loose than too tight

 

Now we are getting a bit convoluted here and out of the context of my original comment. When installing an external cooler, it it wise to run Trans - to ext cooler - to radiator especially if you are in a colder climate.

Bypassing that "cooler" or even worse cooling after the "cooler" in the radiator is not a good idea.

Whether you want to believe it or not, the "cooler" in the bottom of the radiator helps your ATF come up to operating temperature faster in cold climates. Once you are driving that "cooler" may help SOME. But it is not a very good "cooler" by any stretch of the imagination... Which is exactly why external coolers for our Auto Trans, in these trucks, is so often a topic of conversation.

The "cooler" does an exponentially better job helping the ATF get to operating temp, than it does cooling the ATF. Which was the point I was making.

 

@Speedytech7 beat me to it.

He is correct. Better to be a bit slack, than too tight. If you tightened them too much, THAT is very possibly the reason you're idle is too high.

 

The primary purpose of that heat exchanger is to be a cooler. It would help very little with fluid coming up to temp, because heat exchanger efficiency is a function of the difference in temperatures between the two sides of the exchanger. In 20 degree climates, fluid running through a 70 degree single pass exchanger is going to gain very little heat, and much less than the TC and gear movement create.

However, it will do a pretty decent job of cooling 200F+ fluid when the bottom of the radiator is 90F

The cooler does a much better job preventing overheating of the fluid than it does getting the fluid up to temp, which is the point I was making

 

LMFAO.... This is a 1st Gen Tacoma thread. EVERYONE who has done anything to these trucks knows how whoafully inadequate a job the "cooler" does at preventing overheating.

So... the reason we talk about external trans coolers, so often, is... the "cooler" pretty much doesn't do it's job, of "cooling" at all.

Therefore, if it doesn't do that job. It's not a very big stretch that it does the job of "warming" up to operating temp better. Because all it has to do is be halfway decent at that, to be better "warming" than it is at "cooling"



But who am I? I mean it's not like just about every resource, talking about external coolers, doesn't suggest placing the external cooler BEFORE the radiator for precisely the reason I'm talking about.



You keep talking about the inefficiency of the heat exchanger, saying the warming properties of a 120-190 degree radiator warming up ATF (To operating temp... meaning when the truck was just turned on, and you are just beginning to drive it) from at or below freezing is inadequate to warm the ATF up.

Somehow the 120-190 degree coolant absolutely can not warm up cold ATF... BUT... 120-190 degrees coolant does an impeccable job of cooling 190 degree ATF?




Just so we are clear... When I say warming up the ATF. I mean initially, when you just begin to drive your truck. Once it has reached operating temperature, and the truck is driving (even in cold climate) I realize the transmission, it's self is going to keep it warm through friction and normal operation.

 

indeed, it’s not great. That doesn’t make it a heater as a primary function.

it isn’t halfway decent at warming. Not even close

the temperature of the bottom of the radiator is not the temperature of the coolant temperature sender. Go drive your truck, stop, and touch the bottom of the radiator. You’ll be surprised how cool it is. That’s why they put the cooler there.

so yes, 70-90 degree coolant does a much better job of cooling down fluid 100F hotter than the other side of the heat exchanger than it does warming fluid 50 degrees colder than the heat exchanger. An exponentially (quite literally, since it scales with the square of the difference) better job

but it doesn’t actually do that, and the thermodynamics of heat exchangers proves it.

if it was designed in any way to be a heater, it wouldn’t be in the lowest, coldest spot of the radiator

 

The thermodynamics of heat exchangers is literally based on theory that when you run fluid of differing temperatures through chambers together, Those fluids will try to equalize temperature.

So, the exact reason you are saying the coolant will cool the ATF when the ATF is hotter than the coolant, says the coolant will warm the ATF when the coolant is warmer than the ATF.

The coolants don't know what the vessel they are in are named (Cooler/Warmer) the laws of physics says they will try to equalize temperature.




I guess if you specifically want to argue with this I'll change my original statement (although the context of this discussion makes it abundantly clear what I meant by it) from.

The trans "cooler" in the bottom of the radiator is there more so to heat up the trans fluid in cold conditions than to cool the fluid in hot conditions.

To

The trans "cooler" in the bottom of the radiator DOES A MUCH BETTER JOB heating up the trans fluid in cold conditions than to cool the fluid in hot conditions.

 

Who loves road salt?


Added a few more miles to the truck last weekend and saw some great views along the way


We took the southern route into AZ on our way out and the blue northern route home.
Max coolant temp was °212
Max trans temp was °213.
highest point in the trip was just shy of 10,000ft

Cheapest fuel we saw was $2.64/gal and I felt disappointed that we only needed half a tank when we got there.

 

Absolutely love these tail lights

 

Not sure what you're talking about, I just see one poor fella having a conversation with himself.


Anyway, I love road salt...

 

I think I love them even more because I had such a hassle at first getting them wired correctly so it was extra rewarding when it finally came together. I even took them to a local car audio place and the owner tried to tell me the stock vehicle wiring was incorrect even though my stock lights were working as they should.

 

What? You don't want to join in on the discussion on the theories of Thermodynamics?

 

except this is incorrect. Run with no cooler for a fun experiment to prove it

 

Lmao... I'm running a twin fan Hayden cooler looped to a location under the bed, adding over a quart and a half of ATF to the system.

Because the "cooler" in the radiator, does a crap job.

BUT... I have it running from the ACTUAL (Hayden) cooler, through the "cooler" in the radiator, and back to the transmission... for reasons we have already discussed.